Reflections of 40

On the eve of my 40th birthday, I lay in my bed alone and sobbed uncontrollably into my pillow so that my 12 year old son in the next room wouldn’t overhear me. I’m not typically a crier (and I would actually assess that as a weakness, not a strength), but on this night, as I waited for sleep to come and reflected on the milestone day ahead, I had two dreadful realizations:

1) My life had turned out nothing like I thought it would.

2) I am quickly running out of time.

The next day, we went to my mother’s house for a celebratory birthday dinner. My mom had thoughtfully displayed some various photos reflecting my evolution from a young child into a 40 year-old woman and mother, and I found myself absolutely mesmerized by my childhood photos. In each shot, I was so confident, so self- assured, so wildly oblivious to any potential future outcome that was not a complete raving success. And why not? I was really smart, I wasn’t afraid of working hard, I loved art and writing and dancing and science. The world had literally been at my feet.

“What the fuck happened?” I whispered to my younger self in the photos.

I remembered as a young girl talking with my friends and considering all the potential things I could be when I grew up. Maybe I’d be a doctor like my dad, or an artist like my mom, or maybe a dancer or an actress or famous author. It all seemed so entirely attainable, as if all there was to it was to simply choose. The world was an endless array of wonderful possibilities and I had no doubt whatsoever that my path would be spectacular. So I ask again, what the fuck happened?

Well, as a young girl I hadn’t counted on the fact that I would be attempting to maneuver my adulthood as a somewhat broken human being.

The first big break happened when my dad died when I was 20 after a two year battle with cancer. Yes, people die. Yes, its a natural part of life. But for me, it was the moment that the world was no longer a safe place for me. I realized how insanely vulnerable I was to any thousand of potential misfortunes. I became neurotically aware that any sense of security I once had was simply an illusion that could dissolve into absolute horror within a span of two years, or one month or even a single split instant.

The second break came two years later when my heart was equally shattered by the loss of my first love. Again, the world just reinforced that despite my intelligence, my capabilities, my talents, my hard work, none of that shielded me from the random and spontaneous brutal twists of life.

The breaks did not end there, they never end really, and each one left me a different version of my former self, like a bone that’s been broken and forced to heal unset, again and again.

At some point, I began preemptively creating pain so that at least I could control its arrival. At least the pain was on my terms, fate be damned.

I dated the wrong men, I worked insanely hard for the wrong people, I gave up my dreams to accommodate other’s needs, I broke again and again and blamed myself.

I grieved for the girl I once was, because she’s not here any longer. I mourned for the life I thought I’d live before I understood that the very act of living would break me piece by piece. I longed for the time lost that could never be taken back.

As I try to find some sort of higher meaning or reconciliation with these harder facts, I have no perfect answers, accept, perhaps this was the way it was always meant to be.

We often look back at our lives and reflect on paths not taken and wonder, what if? And in our mind’s eye, that path not taken always manages to be THE PATH that would have led to sweet bliss and the fulfillment of our destiny and purpose. We break down life’s complex twists and turns into a fairy tale simplicity and start believing that somewhere along the way, a wrong path was chosen and our true destiny was fumbled.

But now I ask, what if that’s not the case? What if no other paths ever existed accept the one I am on now? What if every path simply led here anyway? What if every moment, every escrutiating break that brought me to my knees, was intentional and mission critical to who I am becoming? What if time, and it’s race to the finish line, is the illusion and there is nothing beyond this moment, right now?

So now, at forty years of age, I am speaking to those twenty-somethings and saying, with utmost certainty, that life will break you. Your path may not look like anything you have imagined for yourself, through no fault of your own. You may wonder what could’ve been had you chosen this or that instead, but I am saying; there is no other path. There is no alternate reality where you are not a little broken and a little confused and a little fearful. Embrace it. Because at the end of the day it’s all we have.

And when I leave this world, it will be with an imperfect history, one riddled with failures and pain and loss. But that is the human condition and we are here to have a human experience, and that, in and of itself is breathtakingly beautiful. So perhaps instead of becoming more perfect, or more fulfilled or more successful, what if the purpose of this all is to simply become more human?